09 April 2009

An article in India's Sunday Times argues that" information put out on mobile phones could transform the fortunes of small farmers –and eventually Reuters" itself.

So far Reuters has about 250,000 customers in Maharashtra, India’s third-largest state, for its service that provides weather reports over a 50-mile radius and crop prices within a five-hour journey.

The service is part of a trend that has turned the mobile phone into the hottest development tool for the world's poor.

To date most telecoms providers have concentrated on reaching the affluent in developing nations with products they offer their wealthy western counterparts. CK Prahalad, in his influential book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, says that the poor in developing markets offer a huge opportunity for companies willing to target them for their mutual benefit.